FIFA World Cup 2026: The MLS team’s youth college has played an important role in developing some key talent on the USMNT and other age-restricted U.S. national teams. To appreciate FC Dallas Academy’s implication as one of the most successful systems for emerging young talent for the U.S. national team, we must look back.
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In 1966, Lamar Hunt, the Arkansas native who forged his fruitful business career in North Texas, fell in love with soccer while viewing the World Cup final between West Germany and England. A year later, one of the patriarchs of soccer in the United States founded the Dallas Tornado, a club that was mostly of European players.
Who went on to lay the foundation for what is now one of the most creative refinement grounds in the country for young player development. That was my father’s vision back in the 1960s, FC Dallas leader Dan Hunt said. The 1994 World Cup in the United States laid the foundation for soccer to develop crosswise the nation.
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Two years later, MLS occurred, and with it came the Dallas Burn, which later evolved into FC Dallas. Dallas is one year away from hosting the World Cup for the second time, and its coming will take Hunt’s legacy to a special dimension. In its 30 years of existence, FCD has struggled to find itself as an inspiration in MLS.
But it has recognized itself as a role model for emerging quality young talent. At the World Cup 2026, there could be close to half a dozen FCD academy graduates vying for spots on the United States roster. Grounding for the foundational season in 1968 of the first successful professional soccer league in the United States.
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The NASL’s Lamar Hunt signed European players to form the Dallas Tornado, since few Americans were interested in playing soccer then. That planted the seeds because all these young Europeans were professional players, and finally, they started their youth clubs, Dan Hunt said.
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The FC Dallas Academy was authoritatively established in 2008 and quickly became a talent supplier for the USMNT and age-limited national teams. Player production is not limited to the U.S. national pool teams from other countries have profited from the FCD Academy’s output. Hunt for approximations that at least 15 players from the academy have been called up to USMNT camps or have had a direct impact.
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Dozens more have been called up to age group teams. The FCD Academy has grown so much that Hunt said it has developed its business unit. FC Dallas Youth and Boys’ Academy director Chris Hayden said the academy has over 100 coaches and 150 players from U-11 to U-19. Our unbiasedness is to produce players for our first team.
Hayden said, Our mission is to find the best talent for the future, and that’s not easy to do with young players. Currently, close to half of the FC Dallas roster consists of players who have appeared from the academy, and while that’s a challenge in trying to win titles, it also represents the franchise’s identity.
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You just take pride in the time and effort you spent with these young players, said FC Dallas head coach Eric Quill, who from 2019 to 2021 was the coach of North Texas SC, an affiliate of FC Dallas in MLS Next Pro. I got into this game to help players be the best versions of themselves and take them outside the levels they think they’re accomplished in, Quill said.
Paxton Pomykal is one of the players who has surveyed the path from the FCD Academy to the USMNT. The midfielder from Lewisville joined the FCD Academy system in 2010 and has played for the Frisco team ever since. We do a really good job of trying to bridge the gap between the academy and the first team, Pomykal said.
The coaches always try to make us as professional as possible at each level. Pomykal, 25, recognizes that the achievement of the FC Dallas system in creating talent has been key to the development and growth of the USMNT and the youth teams. The number of players touched by FC Dallas who are involved with the national team is amazing, Pomykal said.
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In any given camp, there could be several guys who either played in the academy or the first team, which is cool. We’ve set high standards for ourselves here, which translate well at the international level. With just one year to go until the World Cup, the USMNT could have several FCD Academy graduates on its roster.
Dan Hunt considers Weston McKennie, Ricardo Pepi, Chris Richards, Tanner Tessmann, and Shaq Moore have a good chance of representing the spirit of FC Dallas on the world’s biggest soccer stage. In that regard, Hunt intended a picture-perfect day at the World Cup 2026. The semifinal game at Cowboys Stadium.
Ricardo Pepi scored the game-winning goal in front of the home crowd to advance to the World Cup final. It would be like closing a cycle,” said Hunt, referring to Pepi, the FC Dallas home-based striker who now plays for PSV in the Netherlands. According to Hunt, no other MLS team comes close to the model established by FC Dallas for developing players to feed the USMNT.
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Columbus, at one point, its youth club was big, and for a while they did a great job of producing players, but I don’t think there’s any club that compares to what we do, Hunt said. The Hunt family has invested time and money to build the organization necessary to establish itself as MLS’s most successful youth player cylinder.
The 17 fields that make up the Toyota Soccer Center in Frisco are the breeding grounds for hundreds of boys and girls who dream of one day becoming soccer stars. Beyond the structure required to develop young talent, tolerance is another necessary component for success, since developing top-level players takes years. It takes a promise to believe and to push that forward, Hunt said.
It gives me goosebumps to think about it because we’re not here just to grow FC Dallas, we’re here to grow the U.S. national team program. I don’t know if my work will ever be done, but the day the men’s senior national team finally lifts that World Cup trophy, that’s going to make sure we feel we realize that major milestone we were hoping for.
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